“The great trouble is that the preachers get the children from six to seven years of age, and then it’s almost impossible to do anything with them. Incurably religious – that is the best way to describe the mental condition of so many people. Incurably religious.” – Thomas Edison

“If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call in question or discuss it… the life of that man is one long sin against mankind.” – William Kingdon Clifford

“There is in every village a torch: the schoolmaster – and an extinguisher: the parson.” Victor Hugo